When does your coolant resivior bottle start to cycle through the motor? or does it? and if so what conditions??

 

As your engine heats up the coolant expands and the radiator pressurizes, the reservoir is there so that the expanding coolant has an escape route. Without it your radiator would explode or seals will begin to leak.

As your engine cools and the coolant retracts it is sucked back into the radiator from the reservoir.

This is why sometimes you will hear a gurgling sound after you turn a car or bike off, that's the sound of the coolant returning to the radiator.

Hope this helps.

 

It really does. Well I accidently added about a cup of orange coolant to green coolant in my resivior bottle. I have been watching my overflow bottle when my bike is on and off and its doesnt look like it ever moves. I am getting my coolant completely flushed this wknd. How bad is this mistake considering its such a minute mixture??

 

The color of the coolant doesn't matter, it's the ratio of coolant : water that will effect the temperature that the fluid will freeze/gel.

Different brands use different colors in their antifreeze, but it really has no effect on anything.

 

Ok because I drained my coolant 2 days ago which was orange and added green coolant. But i didnt want to mess around with the overflow bottle which only had about a cups worth of orange coolant. So I added some green to it and now its like a dark green. This isnt a problem though??? I still plan to get it flushed just cuz im kinda of OCD like that.

 

So long as the coolant you are using is pre-mixed, it will say right on the bottle if it is.

If it's not, it's concentrated antifreeze which will "gel" when the temps drop below freezing and possibly boil when your engine heats up.

You will need to mix it with water and test the gravity with a hydrometer to see if your mixture ratio is correct.

Also check if you are using Propylene Glycol or Ethylene Glycol antifreeze, because Propylene Glycol antifreeze has a density close to water and a conventional hydrometer won't read correctly... You'll need a refractometer to check PG antifreeze.

This is probably foreign language to you, so just get the shop to check it out, it's easier that way haha.

 

I checked the bottle and it is pre-mixed 50/50 green coolant. Ive been doing some research and I have been hearing about corrosion? Does anyone know about this and how long it takes? Im thinkin im ok momentarily since only a cups worth of orange was mixed in. Can anybody help me out? Getting it flushed saturday.

 

the orange stuff is GM dex-cool. they switched to it originally to increase the service interval. iirc they have had issues with gasket corrosion and stuff like that and i have heard of people switching their dex-cool vehicles back to the green stuff. i wouldn't think the amount you have in your reservoir would do much of anything but if you want to be safe / feel good flush the system, siphon out the reservoir, and add 50/50 mix of the green "all makes all models" stuff. good to go. you won't have to worry about anything with that short period of time.